Notes
| Date | 01 December 1952 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1952.tb02808.x |
| Published date | 01 December 1952 |
NOTES
Developments
in
the
British
Civil
Service,
1945-51
MRS.
D.
JOHNSTONE
laas
asked
us
to
point
out that a complete list of new professional,
scientific and technical classes created
during the period
1945-51
should mclude
the following five classes in addition to
those listed at page
51
of her article in
the Spring issue
:-
Professional Accountants (E.O.C.
65/46)
Statisticians (E.O.C.
21/46)
Photographers (E.O.C.
31/48)
Illustrators (The Treasury Memorandum
Librarians (E.O.C.
40/49)
of
1950
had
no
covering E.C.)
Public
Finance,
1946-51
THE
1952
edition of the White Paper on
National Income and Expenditure covering
the period
1946-51
is much fuller than
the previous issues. Indeed it
has
ceased
to be a White Command Paper; it now
has a blue cover and its price has risen
from
1s.
6d. to
6s.
Finances
of
the Nationalised Industries
Among
the new tables likely to interest
those concerned with public administration
is a section
on
the Public Corporations.
The Central Statistical Office has had
both to define-the term and
to
list the
bodies included. For their purposes a
public corporation is defined as “a
trading body which is publicly controlled
to the extent that the Sovereign, Parliament
or a Minister appoints, directly or in-
directly, the whole or a majority of the
board of management but which is
established as
a
corporate body with its
own
legal existence and with financial
independence.” Twenty-fou bodies are
listed. Most of them are what would
be
expected, e.g. National Coal Board and
British Transport Commission, but more
unlikely choices are the Scottish Special
Housing Association, National Research
and Development Council,
and
Festival
Gardens, Ltd. It should be noticed that
though the New
Town
Development
Corporations are included, the Regional
Hospital Boards are treated
as
part of the
Central Government because they are
“grant-aided bodies set up for the
administration of Government policy
having no
linanaal
independence.” The
Port
of
London Authority and the Mersey
Docks
and
Harbour
Board are included
in the figures for Local Authorities.
This
is in accordance with the practice
for the annual Local Government Financial
Statistics because the definition of
Local
Authority for that purpose is
“
any
local
body, not being
a
company trading
for
profit, which
has
the power to levy rates,
taxes,
tolls or dues, or to require them
to be levied.” Much could be
said
for
and against
this
classification.
While the definition adopted is slightly
wider than that normally used to describe
the
~tionali~ed
industries the extra bodies
included are not of any great financial
importance. We may, therefore, regard
the
following figures as applying substan-
tially to the total financial position of the
recently natiodsed industries.
Total receipts from sales was
E2,409
millions in
1951.
Contrary to popular opinion these
bodies received only
46
millions by way of
Exchequer subsidies and
this
was paid
to
the Airways Corporations and the National
Service Hostels Corporation, Ltd. On
the other hand their trading surplus was
El48
millions,
and they had other income
of
El5
millions, making
El63
millions in
all. Of this,
El09
millions went for
interest on capital,
E29
millions
for
taxation, and
E25
millions was retained
and transferred to capital account.
L994
millions was paid in wages and
salaries.
This
was nearly one-eighth of
the total for wages and sal+es for the
United Kingdom
u8,266
millions).
Loud
rates amounted to
E23
millions,
or less than
1
per cent. of the total sales.
Local
Authority Finances
It
is
unfortunately not possible
to
compare these figures with those for the
Central Government and for Nationalised
Industries, for comparable information is
not provided. The figures for
Local
Authority trading, for example, are net,
376
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